Are Sports Drinks Better for Athletes than Water?

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It is important for anyone doing physical activity to keep well hydrated, for performance to be at its best. Sports drinks are specially formulated to help people rehydrate during or after exercise. Drinks such as Gatorade and Powerade contain the main electrolytes and carbohydrates, which are used by the working muscles, to maintain optimal sports performance (Medindia.net, 2014). The acidity of sports drinks and the sugars, is raising health concerns, and creates unnecessary calories. (Nutritionwonderland.com, 2014) Sports drinks are proven to only be necessary when working intensely for over 90 minutes, so an athlete running a marathon may need a Powerade, but water is the best source of hydration for exercise of 90min or less.…show more content…

Every athlete wants their body to perform smoothly, without compromise, and just as you shouldn’t wait until dehydrated to drink, you shouldn’t wait until you finally have a cramp, before stocking up on electrolytes. Cramping, therefore, is your body’s way of telling you that you are low on electrolytes. ((Www.Zaneray.Com), 2014)

Sports drinks contain ingredients which have raised health concerns. The main ingredients in sports drinks are glucose, sucrose, and fructose or high-fructose corn syrup. (Insidetracker.com, 2012) Gatorade’s Glacier Cherry Perform drink, contain 41g of sugar per serving, which is equivalent to 10 teaspoons of sugar. (Griffith-Greene, 2014) Although sugar is necessary for the drink to taste good, sugar can have long term effects on your health. Too much sugar can over time lead to diabetes, high blood pressure and weight gain. (Hagy, 2007) As well as sugar, the acidity in sports drinks can dissolve teeth. These drinks are often full of sugar and sodium, which cling to the teeth, and eat away the protective enamel. People, who is drinking sports drinks, are often dehydrated, meaning they are low on fluids. Being low on fluids, affects the saliva production in the mouth, which protects the teeth by washing away products which cling to them. Being low on fluids means that there is less saliva to wash away…

Staying hydrated is one of the most important parts of physical activity. In Clinics of Sports Medicine, it explains that “Maintenance of water and electrolyte balance is important for sustaining cognitive and physical performance. Dehydration degrades morale and desire to work. Body water deficits of as little as 2% body weight can impair physical performance. Water deficits of 5% to 7% body weight are associated with headaches, dizziness, and apathy” (Latzka, Montain 1). To prevent dehydration…

Drinking Tap-water is better than Bottled Water
Bottled water is simply water from some sources that a company has placed in a bottle for resale. It can have minimal processing – as in natural spring or mineral water, or it can be completely filtered and dematerialized which is to remove minerals in the water to nearly pure, and then added minerals back into the water to make it taste better. In these days, “we drink 15 times more bottled water today than we did in 1976. According to the NRDC…

Sports drinks are drinks consumed by athletes and professional sports men and woman to rehydrate and replace energy. Sports drinks contain varying levels of fluid, electrolytes and carbohydrate which all play a role in rehydrating and replenishing the body after strenuous physical activity. There are three types of sports drinks on the market; isotonic, hypotonic and hypertonic. Isotonic drinks provide the athlete with fast fluid replacement which was lost by sweat, these drinks provide a boost of…

The major reason anyone drinks fluid before, during and after physical activity is to replace the water that is lost through sweat. If the water isn't replaced dehydration will occur and performance will be hampered. The purpose of sports drinks is to help rehydrate your body quickly and help improve performance and productivity. This is accomplished through a well-balanced mix of water, sugar (carbohydrates) and salts (electrolytes), the major ingredients in most sports drinks. These ingredients, combined…

Since the creation of Gatorade in 1987 sports drinks have become a staple of American athletics. Every major sports league, including the NBA, NHL, MLB, NFL and NASCAR, are sponsored by and use Gatorade Thirst Quencher. All Sport and Powerade, two other smaller market sports drinks, have limited sponsorships of smaller sports leagues including the NCAA. The question is, how effective is Gatorade and other sports drinks in doing what it they're advertised to do? One has to wonder if the wide use…

The pertaining research involves the electrolytes in drinks. “Electrolyte” will be defined and its description of what they do, what they are, and how they help people will be further explained. The intention is to establish the efficiency of sports drinks and orange juice and then compare them. The pros and cons of both the orange juice and sports drinks will be elucidated through the research. Other drinks consumed after exercise will also be researched and their efficiency will be explained…

"Image is nothing, thirst is everything." This is a slogan used by the soft drink Sprite. It tells a consumer not to buy a product because of the labeling, packaging, or the way it is presented, but to instead buy it because it tastes good. This seems to be an honest and open statement, not what you would expect to hear in an advertisement. Ironically though, just before this slogan flashes on the screen, Kobe Bryant and Grant Hill, two of the NBA's rising starts, are shown talking about how…

Effect Of A Sport Drink On Reaction Time
Abstract
Doing heavy sport such as run marathon or exercise in the gym can produce much sweat. Produce too much sweat could have a significant loss of fluid and electrolytes in the body such as potassium and calcium. This can cause symptoms from fatigue and reduction in exercise performance to more serious conditions such as heat exhaustion or heat stroke (Leong, 2007). Drinking water after exercise helps to restore water balance in the body. Drinking…

Analysis of Sports and Energy Drinks in Hong Kong
Introduction
Our company, Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, is planning for a product strategy to its product: Pocari Sweat. Pocari Sweat is a grapefruit-tasting, non-carbonated sweet beverage and is advertised as an “ion supply drink”. It is designed to increase endurance, replace electrolyte loss or prevent dehydration when exercising for long periods of time.
Pocari Sweat is well-recognized by the local people, especially to the athletes.
Category…